Les Earnest is well known to digital cognoscenti for his contributions to artificial intelligence, robotics and the Internet, but few know of his warning that inadvertent erections could start a nuclear war:

In the 1950s I helped design the SAGE [Semi-Automatic Ground Environment] air defense system … when we reviewed the BOMARC [Missile] launch control system, one of our engineers noticed a rather serious defect: if the launch command system was tested, … the “test” switch was then returned to “operate” without individually resetting the control systems in each missile that had been tested, they would all immediately erect and launch! Needless to say, that “feature” was modified rather soon after we mentioned it to Boeing. …

The SAGE system used land lines to transmit launch commands to the missile site and these lines were duplexed for reliability. … However on examination we discovered that if both lines were bad at the same time, the system would … amplify whatever noise was there and interpret it as a stream of random bits. … Fortunately, we were able to show that getting a complete set of acceptable guidance commands within this time was extremely improbable, so this failure mode did not present a nuclear safety threat. The official name of the first BOMARC model was IM-99A, so I wrote a report about this problem titled Inadvertent erection of the IM-99A.

Les concludes that:

SAGE was a gigantic fraud on taxpayers in that it was a “peacetime defense system” that would malfunction under an actual attack, much like France’s Maginot Line did in World War 2. … SAGE thus gave rise to a corrupt military-industrial-political establishment that has produced a string of largely useless command-control and weapons projects such as President Reagan’s phony “Star Wars” defense program and the current ongoing deployment of anti-missile systems that don’t work. But that is another story.

Whether or not one agrees with Les’ assessment of missile defense, in the Alice-in-Wonderland world of nuclear strategy, some supposed safeguards have the potential to turn around and bite us. A short clip from Peter Sellers’ classic movie Dr. Strangelove makes that point all too well. In this scene, the president has just been informed that a rogue general is in the process of starting World War III:

nice presentation! its the old philosophical dilemma: what is noise vs signal, and what does a 'device-person' act on in the stream of noise vs signal to survive and live another day, in a hostile universe. To whatever extent this represents an actual problem in the real world, past or present, the Greeks first pointed out this important dilemma over "uncertainty". Darwin's (Mendelian) theory of Natural Selection offers one solution namely - that 'systems learn over time and only systems that learn, survive and are fit, and their genes get passed on while the rest leave the active gene pool'. (It turns out that is not quite true as a practical matter). In a 1959 seminar at U Chicago (Argonne Labs) Oppenheimer guessed that the 'fundamental particles' were survivors of a very hostile-competitive early universe who had to set up systems for distinguishing noise vs. signal, or else there would be no order of any kind in the universe ... but a purely random cosmic soup of disorganization. Oppenheimer wondered if the fundamental laws of nature were the result of a process of Natural Selection where competing forces result in a sorting process the end result of which over time is an 'ordered set of rules and laws' which govern how a universe can exist, or not. The fact there is so little anti-matter in our universe is one example ...

The question is: was SAGE data used at all The attached lists what data was used -               

I wonder what was first? the landing zone map, or the whole flight path map? McChord is mentioned as the radar provider with the possible location of the jump.

Quote

The question is: was SAGE data used at all!

It causes questions more than answers IMO. Carr states that the map was made by the military, but how? I emailed another person who is familiar with the sage. I asked him how a map could be made, or if one could. (answer pending on a response)

The F-106's didn't seem to track 305, so did the Sage even work accurately without this link? R99 seems to believe it wasn't used. it's possible they only monitored the whole thing?

The radar used by the FAA for air traffic control purposes was probably located on McChord AFB property and jointly used by the FAA, USAF, and maybe other government organizations.  In fact, at least some of the FAA controllers, especially the enroute controllers, may have been located at McChord also.

And at least some, if not all, of the controllers in the McChord tower would have been military personnel.  Others could have been FAA or USAF employed civilians.

So when the FBI says they got the radar information from a USAF Captain at McChord, it is entirely possible that he was giving them the very information that the FAA had used.  Nevertheless, there are big problems with that information.  Such as, is it really the information for flight 305?

Continued email

The AN/FSQ-7 SAGE computer had magnetic core memory, which was persistent, even when the computer was powered down.  However, upon startup, that memory was usually reset and then reloaded from magnetic tape.  Magnetic drums were used for short-term memory, and the data stored there was also persistent and had to be erased or overwritten.
 
Generally speaking, the core memory was mostly used to store instructions and temporary data values, the magnetic drums held some instructions and history information, and magnetic tapes were either program storage (used to initiate and while running) or history information about tracks for later analysis.
 
Radar history was kept on a special purpose magnetic drum, which kept several minutes of past radar blips and presented them in sequence to indicate aircraft tracks.  Track information was also kept on drums, but it was more fleeting in nature—only the current values were available there.  Depending on what the settings were, track data was written to magnetic tapes for review if necessary.
 
As far as I know, none of the SAGE data would have been immediately available to law enforcement, and probably not even some time later.  It is possible that some could have been requested for a specific situation, but there were no communications set up to permit that on a regular basis.
 
David E. Casteel
Former! SAGE Computer Maintenance Officer

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Dec 1, 1971

No Word On Hijacker
WOODLAND, Wash. (UPI)The temporary headquarters in the search for a hijacker who parachuted from a jetliner a week ago, with $200,000 ransom, has been closed. The FBI and Clark County Sheriff's deputies ended six days of scouring a 15-square mile area around Woodland, Wash., Tuesday without a trace of the man who called himself “D.B. Cooper.” He bailed out of a Northwest Airlines plane between Seattle and Reno, Nev. “There's nothing new, and we’ve taken our men off unless something else turns up,” said I Sheriff Eugene Cotton. The FBI would say only “the I investigation is continuing.” An onboard computer in the Boeing 727 plane had indicated the hijacker, who collected the ransom money in Seattle when he released the plane’s passengers, probably jumped from the rear stairwell of the plane over Woodland. Cotton said his men were continuing to “check out every lead” but so far they've drawn a blank.


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Nov 29, 1971

Hijacker's Cash May Get Soggy
WOODLAND, Wash. (UPI)If “D.B. Cooper,” the skydiving hijacker is alive and well in the woods near here, it’s a safe bet to say he’s holding 10,000 soggy $2O bills. Rain came to this area Sunday in buckets. During the day the storm clouds broke for a moment and Woodland’s police chief-pilot, Joe May, was able ho make one flight up the Lewis River gorge to check out another in a series of false leads, a “parachute” in a tree turned out to be a tin roof on a hillside. The FBI agent in charge of field work here, Tom Manning, took his radio off the hook and ■ spent Sunday dodging reporters ( and doing old-fashioned leg work—checking leads, stopping at airports and interviewing resident after resident in the area of the search, which enters its fifth day today. A Northwest Airlines 727 jetliner was hijacked between Portland, Ore. and Seattle Wednesday night. Saying he had a bomb, a soft-spoken, I middle-aged hijacker forced the Diane to land in Seattle w r here he left off all the passengers, collected $200,000 ransom and four parachutes and said he wanted to go to Mexico. Somewhere between Seattle and Reno. Nev., where the plane was to refuel, “D.B. Cooper” bailed out with the money. “We’ve taken radar reports, it’s all been computerized and we feel he’s in this area,” Manning said from his Woodland headquarters. The estimate was based on the plane’s in-flight recorder, which showed when the hiiacker lowered the 727’s rear steps and a “slight change in altitude” three minutes later, indicating he had jumped. Manning’s field work was augmented by teams of other agents. The number of other agents out was unknown to anvone but the FBI. however ; (here were a lot of new faces for breakfast at what ha? become unofficial search headquarters. Woodland’s Oak Tree restaurant. The terrain in the search area is what hiking schools would term “difficult.” Northern Clark County and southern Cowlitz County comprise an area crisscrossed with logging roads, some rural highways and most of the adjacent acreage is covered with towering second growth douglas fir.


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Nov 26, 1971

FBI Searching For Hijacker
WOODLAND. Wash. (UPI) - FBI agents and police fanned out In the Cascade foothills today searching for the daring hijacker who parachuted into the wilderness with $200,000 ransom. “If he is in the area ... we’ll dig him out of the woodwork somehow,” an FBI spokesman promised. The FBI decided Thursday to set up search headquarters here for a “D.B. Cooper,”who pulled off the bizarre Thanksgiving Eve hijacking and parachuting and disappeared with the ransom. A Northwest Airlines Boeing 727 was hijacked late Wednesday with 42 persons aboard on a flight from Portland, Ore., to Seattle, Wash. The methodical hijacker allowed the 36 passengers to disembark after he received the ransom and four parachutes. The hijacker, described as middleaged and “very relaxed,” disappeared as the plane flew on from SeattleTacoma International Airport to Reno. Nev. The FBI said the search was being concentrated in the Cowlitz-Clark County area in southern Washington as a result of information provided by the crew and “strictly conjecture on our part." An FBI spokesman said the 75-square mile area was selected because the crew' reported a slight shift in the plane’s balance while over this farmland region.

Shutter wrote: The F-106's didn't seem to track 305, so did the Sage even work accurately without this link? R99 seems to believe it wasn't used. it's possible they only monitored the whole thing?

I worked for the company that made the MA1 system
for the F 106. When it worked it gave phenomenal performance allowing SAGE to control the aircraft autopilot to make a target intercept. It had persistent reliability problems that were really never fully fixed despite numerous mods, ECOs, patches etc. if it had been working no way would the NWA 727 have escaped the 106s. The intercept failure doesn't mean SAGE wasn't painting targets. There were many weak links including the data link between SAGE and the 106, the MA1 electronics on the 106, etc.

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377

Good find, Fly, on the newspaper reports above.

So, Manning was dodging reporters by Sunday. I know the type. Just not cut out for modern-day LE. They long for the 1880s, or maybe Chicago, 1923. Give me a gun and a bad guy, and get out of my way...

Your reports confirm that the ground search was shut down by Monday. In fact, according to Himms, the federal manpower was shifted on Monday to scouring Victor 23 from Seattle to Reno. RH and the Portland crew had all of Oregon. Sacramento handled the Oregon border to Reno, and the Seattle FO handled Sea-Tac and south. All of it from the air with helos and fixed-wing.

As for the size of the ground search, your media reports also confirm that it was quite variable and indeterminate - 15 sq miles? 75 sq miles? Pick a number. Who went looking for DBC? And where? And for how long? All these questions are still pretty iffy.

Lots of media reports say the grounds around Woodland were searched heavily, but the specifics are totally up in the air. FBI? WSP? County Deps? Volunteers? The best that I can find is that Manning and a few FBI stayed around Woodland from Friday AM to Monday AM to operate a comm center. Most feds went to PDX. RH went in the air in his plane part of the time, and then spent the rest of his time at the Portland FO to manage leads, Q&A, etc.

10-20 Clark County Deps went into the woods around Ariel and Amboy, accompanied by vols. I have no idea where the WSP was. I should call them and ask.

As for SAGE, Tom Kaye spoke very authoritatively about the flight path in Portland in 2011, and specifically stated that he consulted the original SAGE transcripts and "maps." But he didn't show us any documents, just a real pretty power-point and graphics.

Speaking about press coverage, nowadays the cops talk for the cameras. Print journalists are irrelevant. The "good" PIOs, like Det. Ed Troyer of the Pierce County SD, are very schooled and skilled in front of the cameras. Many are not, like the Sheriff down in Roseburg, Oregon on the mass shooting a month or so ago. But they all have mentors and media coaches, helping them know exactly what to say, and what NOT to say.

As for SAGE, Tom Kaye spoke very authoritatively about the flight path in Portland in 2011, and specifically stated that he consulted the original SAGE transcripts and "maps." But he didn't show us any documents, just a real pretty power-point and graphics.

I think you have posted this before ... at DZ?

I'm just astounded every time you post it, because for one thing Kaye has never uttered one word about this, on or off his website, to corroborate what you are saying?

You and Kaye seem to have information that nobody else has and could only dream of having! Lucky Kaye, and Lucky you! Did Agent Carr get to see what Kaye saw and has?

Why doesn't Kaye mention this on his website, or did I miss it?

 

Georger, you seem to forget easily that I am a journalist. As such, I am not is the habit of asking my sources why they are not posting information in places where you can find it.

Tom Kaye spoke about SAGE while he was standing in front of 300 people, several reports from the Oregonian and the Seattle Times, and a bank of TV cameras.

Yes, I have posted my comments about Tom Kaye in several places, most notably my book. BTW, have you read it? I have also posted on Tom at the DZ. Also on the Mountain News-WA.

I dont keep up with your Revelations - anywhere but here. I groan when I have to here!

If Kaye has seen the documents you reports this is BIG NEWS to a number of people. R99 should take note! Shutter likewise.

Maybe you only 'thot' you heard Tom say what you are saying he said, but failed to post anywhere else? The only place he could have seen these coveted documents is at the FBI?